Friday

It was getting pretty messy, I was leaving supplies in baggies and throwing them into a Charlotte Russe shoebox. I went out to the local 99c store and bought four bags of these white circular containers. Each bag contained 10. (The dollar store is hands-down the best place to get storage materials.)

I still use the shoebox, but instead of roughed up baggies, I have these nice containers!

Also, I'm always up to reusing tins. One of my good friends bought me Glow in the Dark stars as an early Christmas present. After going sticker crazy on my ceiling, I thought the tin would be a good place for my tassels.

In this post I talked about 'leftovers' and since then I have started collecting them in this wooden box. I've had it for years. It was actually the box/packaging for a diary/planner!

I like this over the bowl before of the lid.

Once in a while I'll go through and regroup my beads into sections that make more sense. On the left, I had all those beads thrown together. Instead, I decided to just keep the flowers in a container. On the right, I had crimp beads mixed in with blue seed beads. I finally separated them.

Wednesday

What I like about these bracelets are 1. how easy they are to make 2. how minimal they are.

You can stack them with different kinds of bracelets: arm bands, watches, elastic bracelets, chunky bracelets, etc or you can wear one delicate strand on its own.

I've been on a white/black/gold kick. I was making earrings and was looking at my supplies and I have a surplus of charms so I figured I would make some bracelets.

To start off, I'm making bracelets from two different types of chain, both gold and both really delicate.

links / ball chain

For ball chain, all you need is the chain and the right size connectors.

Hold the chain up against your wrist. Remember that you still need to take in account the connector, which will add a tiny bit more room.

Connect one side. Slip the end of the ball chain into the middle of the connector then snap it to one side.

I'm going to use two different sizes of this link chain.

For this type of chain you will need jump rings and a type of clasp, I'm using lobster. You can also use an end finding, but I'm just going to use jump rings.

Remember to take into account the length of your jump rings and lobster claw when you're measuring out your chain.

This is my skeleton for all these bracelets.

Finish one end-- add a jump ring then lobster claw.

Now for the fun, creative part.

All these bracelets are really easy, I'm basically just stringing all the charms/beads on. Nothing fancy, nothing hard.

Here are a couple step-by-steps:

You're going to have to make sure the holes in the beads are large enough to string the chain through.

I like that the charms just fall wherever they want to.

This is an old H&M earring I took apart.

The holes weren't big enough so I added them onto jump rings to string on.

As much as I like the look of multiples of the same charm on a chain, sometimes just one is great too.

I really wanted to make this ceramic skull bead work, but it was just too large for my tastes.

Here is all of them! Basic skeleton for all the bracelets, just strung different charms/beads onto them. I only deviated on one of the bracelets--- I added TWO different components the white rubber disc beads/initial beads. Otherwise, I used the same type of bead for each bracelet. I like the uniformity.

I could have easily strung 1 charm or 23.

they look like necklaces here

hints, tips, notes:

The charms will also factor into the length you want to cut your bracelet.

Be careful when taking ball chain bracelets off, there is no way of stopping all the beads from falling off if you accidentally let go of the other end.

Change up the lengths so if you stack them they'll fall differently.

Most beads are fair game.

If you can't string em, put them on jump rings or get headpins and loop them on.

The amount of beads you want to put on is up to your own discretion and tastes.

You can also just pull them off and on whenever you feel like doing so.